Vase aux Iris et Orchidées

irises or orchids
Laure Albin-Guillot (1879-1962) :: Vase aux Iris | Vase with Iris, 1938 | src tout ceci est magnifique
Laure Albin-Guillot (1879-1962) :: Vase aux orchidées (*), 1938. Épreuve au charbon, tirage Fresson, signée et datée au recto, inscription manuscrite « New York expo Art décoratif français » au verso | src Piasa auction Dec. 2016 (lot 11)

(*) Note: not orchids but irises; vase with irises. Unless they were a variety of orchids that look very much like irises. If anybody happen to have the knowledge to disambiguate, please drop a line below. Thank you!

Laure Albin-Guillot :: Orchidées 1927. Carbon Fresson print, on metalised golden paper. | src Luminous Lint LL/50901
Laure Albin-Guillot :: Orchidées, 1927. Carbon Fresson print, on metalised golden paper. Auctioned at Sotheby’s May 2013 PF 1310 Lot 79. | src Luminous Lint : LL/50901

“Le sujet le plus banal, quelques fleurs dans un vase par exemple, devient nouveau par la façon dont les lumières y sont groupées et par l’extrème variété des valeurs. (…) Pour donner plus de richesse à ses compositions, l’auteur [Laure Albin Guillot] les a tirées sur fond or selon un procédé dont elle a le brevet.”
Jean Gallotti, ‘La photographie est-elle un art? Laure Albin-Guyot [sic!]’, dans L’art vivant, No. 99, 1er février 1929, p. 138. [Quoted from Sotheby’s]

Where in Heaven Will I Find You

Joan Vilatobà ~ En quin lloc del cel et trobaré? | Where in Heaven Will I Find You? (Detail) | src MNAC
Joan Vilatobà ~ En quin lloc del cel et trobaré? | Where in Heaven Will I Find You? ca. 1903-1905. Silver gelatin on baryta-coated paper | src MNAC

The massive industrialization of the photography based on the new models of Kodak in 1888, marked the birth of amateurism, and what could be considered its elitist complement and counterpart, Pictorialism, understood to be the first discourse of artistic legitimization of photography.    

Faced with technological standardization and documental utilitarianism, Pictorialism proposed the use of pigmentary techniques that evoked the manual work of paintings, as well as their symbolic, picturesque or sublime themes, in accordance with the aesthetic paradigms of the modern art of the 19th century, which was based on the romantic principle of genius. In some way the concept of “creation” was introduced into photographic techniques, vindicating the figure of the photographer as an author and interpreter of reality.  Within this framework, Joan Vilatobà created a series of works which moved between symbolic allegory and customs, and photography through topics such as beauty, death, love, etc., of which Where in heaven will I find you? is an example. | quoted from MNAC ~ Museu Nacional d’ Art de Catalunya

Joan Vilatobà ~ En quin lloc del cel et trobaré? | Where in Heaven Will I Find You? (Detail 2) | src MNAC

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

William Herbert Mortensen · Art study for Selected Quatrains from ‘The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam with Camera Projections’ (*), 1925.
(*) This was the photographer’s first book. This hand-bound title was produced by Mortensen while he was designing sets for a mid-1920s production of the Rubaiyat entitled ‘A Lovers Oath’. | src Swann Galleries via hauntedBYstorytelling

Yayoi Kusama at 10 (1939)

Yayoi Kusama aged 10, 1939 | source stephen ellcock
Yayoi Kusama aged 10, 1939 | source stephen ellcock
Yayoi Kusama at the age of ten, 1939. [Kusama, ca 10 år gammal år 1939] Bild: © Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/ Singapore; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; David Zwirner, New York, © Yayoi Kusama | src Svenska Yle
Yayoi Kusama at the age of ten, 1939. [Kusama, ca 10 år gammal år 1939] Bild: © Courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/ Singapore; Victoria Miro Gallery, London; David Zwirner, New York, © Yayoi Kusama | src Svenska Yle